By the time the Apple II was in development, the company needed some serious finance. To this end, Jobs and Woz were put in touch with Don Valentine, a venture capitalist who played a key role in developing Jobs’ ‘dream big’ philosophy. Courting Valentine’s investment, Jobs told him of Apple’s plans to sell as many as a couple of thousand computers a year, a seemingly ambitious claim at the time seeing as the Apple I had done about a tenth of that figure. But it impressed Valentine little. He had a mantra: ‘Big thinkers often do big things. Small thinkers never do big things.’ Was Apple run, he wondered, by small thinkers?

In the end, he decided not to invest – probably not his best day’s work – but saw the potential and put the company in contact with another professional investor, Mike Markkula, who had heritage as a marketing man for Intel. Markkula promptly guaranteed Apple a credit line of a quarter of a million dollars, on the condition that Woz devoted himself to the business full-time. But Woz was comfortable in his position at Hewlett-Packard. He earned decent money and, with a wife to support, the appeal of a regular pay cheque was strong. Was ‘small thinking’ going to be Apple’s downfall after all?

Markkula was determined that this would not be the case. He spoke of the emergence of a once-in-a-generation industry and told them he wanted them all to ride the rollercoaster. Such talk was lapped up by a receptive Jobs, who went on a mission to gather a small army comprising mutual friends and members of the Wozniak family. Together they arm-twisted Woz into coming to work on the Apple project full-time. Woz, who knew he wanted to create rather than manage, was persuaded that Jobs and Markkula would look after the ‘exec’ side of things. He finally wilted under the pressure and agreed to leave behind his HP security net.

In January 1977, Markkula joined Apple alongside Jobs and Woz, each taking a third share in the business. Where Apple I sold about 200 units in total, retailing at $666.66 (a relatively short production run that ensures they are now highly prized, with one auctioned for $640,000 in 2012), within nine months of Markkula’s arrival, Apple II boasted sales of over three-quarters of a million dollars. Twelve months later and sales were up to about $8 million.